Festive in Death (In Death #39)(29)

“Stop it,” Eve ordered.

“It’s just sitting here.” Hurriedly Peabody rubbed some cream over her hands. “And it smells really good.”

“Try for some dignity,” Eve muttered as Trina swept in from the back.

Unlike her receptionist, Trina wore flat-soled shoes—but Eve found it hard to deem them practical as red-nosed reindeers cavorted over them.

“Sima needs a couple minutes. She’s at a critical point of the service. She can take five when she finishes applying the full mask. You should come back. I’ve got one treatment room open—we’re slammed with holiday party prep—but we can use it for a few.”

“Fine.” Eve started back with her, grabbed Peabody by the arm to make sure her partner didn’t go back to playing with samples. “You didn’t mention Ziegler used persuaders on women.”

“Do what?”

“You know, a little something in the tea to make a woman more . . . agreeable to having sex.”

Trina stopped dead in front of a line of cushy chairs where some women had their feet in bubbly blue water, others had them covered with green goo, and still others had techs painting their toes.

“I knew it. I knew it! Fucker.”

“You knew, but didn’t think it worth mentioning?”

“I didn’t know know it, but I knew it. Fucker,” she repeated, angry color rising up in her high-planed cheeks as she stomped off toward a door in her reindeer booties.

Inside she paced around a padded table, passed shiny silver counters holding what looked to Eve like devices of torture.

“You can’t say shit like that if you don’t absolutely know. But I knew. In my gut.”

She threw up her hands, still pacing so the red lab-style coat she wore over a black skin suit flapped.

“I told you I’ve had some women in my chair who’d slept with him, and some of them said how they didn’t plan on it, but how they just got the urge during a session—always a home session. Massage or personal training.”

“Names.”

Now Trina stopped in her tracks. “Come on, Dallas, my clients have to know I won’t mouth off about their personal business. They have to trust me.”

“It’s murder, Trina, and getting dosed is a hell of a motive for it.”

“Christ! None of my clients killed the slimy bastard.” She kicked a cabinet, a sentiment and temper reliever Eve understood. “Fine, fine. Fuck. I’ll give you the names, but you gotta let me contact them first, give them a heads-up. I need to make it right with them.”

“No details, Trina. You can tell them the cops forced you to give their names as part of the investigation, but that’s it.”

“Damn it. Damn it. I wish he wasn’t dead so I could peel the skin off his balls. Sima. Motherf*cker! He probably used something on her, too.”

Even as she spoke Sima poked her head in the door. “I’m really sorry. I couldn’t leave my client until I’d finished the application.” She came in, closed the door behind her, then twisted her hands together. “Do you know who killed Trey?”

“The investigation’s ongoing. Sima, do you know where Trey got his tea?”

“Tea? Oh, you mean the herbals. Gosh, I really don’t. He bought it loose, and it came in little bags. First time I thought they were illegals, maybe Zoner or something—and I was really surprised because he’s so careful about what goes into his body, you know? But he said they were specialty herbals, just a nice little perk for clients before a massage or after a workout. He didn’t even charge extra.”

“And the incense?”

“I don’t know. He hardly ever burned it at home. It was for clients again. You know, aromatherapy.”

“He used at home, with you?”

“A few times.”

“Did he ever make you tea?”

“Sure, a few times. To help me relax after a tough day. The tea and incense, and a shoulder massage.” Tears shimmered. “He could be so sweet that way when he wanted to.”

Out of the corner of her eye, Eve saw Trina set her teeth, turn away—and saw Peabody give her arm a rub.

“Let me ask you, Sima, and I need you to be square with me. When he made the tea, lit the incense, did you have sex with him?”

“Well . . . I guess.” She frowned a little, flushed a little. “Yeah, I guess. I’d get relaxed, you know.”

“After a hard day,” Eve continued. “So you maybe weren’t feeling much like having sex . . . until you got relaxed.”

“Sometimes you’re on your feet for like eight hours, hardly a break. It just can go that way, and that’s good because it means people ask for you especially. But when you get home, maybe you just want to sit down, watch some screen, maybe go to bed—to sleep I mean—a little early.”

“Sure, I know how it goes.”

“Everybody does, right? Well, mostly. Trey, I swear, he could want to do it twice a day every day.”

“So you maybe just wanted to kick back, watch some screen, and he wanted sex.”

“He wasn’t pushy about it. If I told him I was really tired or whatever, he was okay with it.”

“He’d make you some tea, to relax you.”